


Trick Questions

by earlgreytea68



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-The Sign of Three, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if a client hadn't interrupted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick Questions

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вопросы с подвохом](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130273) by [xaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaa/pseuds/xaa)
  * Translation into Polski available: [Podstępne pytania](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1715480) by [Ciri666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciri666/pseuds/Ciri666)



> Thank you to arctacuda for the quick beta and for acting as a sounding-board and to flawedamythyst for the quick Britpick and for dealing with my breakdown and for making this fic better. 
> 
> Ugh, you guys, this fic is giving me absolute *fits,* so I'm just going to post it because I figure that it's going to be irrelevant in three days anyway.

“I’m you, aren’t I?” said Sherlock, looking pleased with himself for having made the deduction. 

John laughed helplessly. “No, you’re not,” he said, struggling to shift his weight in the chair, back toward Sherlock. 

“I must be. A man, nice-ish, clever, people don’t like me—”

“Only half of those things describe me!” John protested, thinking fondly that Sherlock was ridiculous. “People like me!”

“Mmmm no, they don’t. Don’t you remember the…” Sherlock searched for the word, waving his tumbler around. “…study!” He found the word. “The study I did for you for your birthday? About repressed hatred?”

“Yes,” said John, and nudged his foot against Sherlock’s calf in what he imagined was reproach. “Charming.”

“You loved it,” Sherlock sing-songed. He was collapsed backward in the chair, his eyes closed, with the tumbler pressed to his forehead. “You love everything about me,” he mumbled. “I deduced it.”

John, elbows on knees and glass loosely grasped between his hands, looked at Sherlock. “You didn’t even know that you were my best friend.”

“I deduced after you told me that,” said Sherlock, without opening his eyes, and gestured with his glass, as if that was the only thing that made any sense at all. “I didn’t have all the information, before. And then I did. I think it’s your go. Isn’t it your go?” Sherlock opened his eyes and squinted across at John. 

“I can’t play anymore,” John reminded him. “You don’t know who I am.”

“You’re John Watson. Wait, that’s who _I_ am.”

“You’re not me.”

“I’ll ask another question, then, shall I?” Sherlock considered, dramatically turning his eyes up toward the ceiling in an exaggeration of thought, and then he struggled to lean forward, mirroring John’s pose, which forced their limbs into something that would become a tangle if either of them moved. “Am _I_ pretty?” Sherlock demanded, proud of himself for the question. 

John looked from Sherlock’s face to the piece of paper on Sherlock’s forehead and then back to Sherlock’s face. 

“John,” complained Sherlock, and nudged his knees against John’s. “Am I _pretty_?”

John looked across at him. His face was close enough that John thought he could count Sherlock’s eyelashes if he so desired. John felt suddenly astonishingly sober. “Sherlock,” he said. 

Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered and he swayed toward John as if by instinct. If John hadn’t pulled backward, they would have kissed as a matter of simple physics. “Mmm?” said Sherlock. 

John reached out and put his glass down somewhere. Or he thought he did. He certainly didn’t have the glass in his hand anymore. He said, “Sherlock,” and his voice sounded very far away, like he was listening in on this whole scene from a very great distance. He licked his lips and said, “Tell me not to marry Mary.”

Sherlock focused on him. He frowned. “But you _should_ marry Mary. Mary would—” 

John lifted up his hand and rested it on the back of Sherlock’s neck. It was so very strange. John had never touched him there before. Sherlock’s neck was warm and smooth at the bottom of John’s hand; at the top of John’s hand, Sherlock’s curls fell over his fingers, impossibly soft, even after the evening they’d just had. 

Sherlock’s eyes widened, although he didn’t move. He blinked and said, “Mary would—”

“No,” John interjected, keeping his voice soft. He was staring at Sherlock, although not into his eyes. He was cataloguing everything about him, now that he was so close that he could. He felt a little bit like he was seeing Sherlock for the first time, that he had never really _looked_ at him before. His eyes darted from Sherlock’s cheekbones to his eyelids to his forehead to his hairline to his ears to his mouth to his chin to his nose. “Sherlock. Listen to me. Give me a reason not to marry Mary.”

“There is no reason, John,” said Sherlock, speaking quickly. “It makes perfectly logical sense for you to—”

John finally, finally let himself look into Sherlock’s eyes. “What if I told you I was in love with someone else?”

Sherlock blinked. John wished one of them had had less to drink so he could determine what Sherlock was thinking. “That would be foolish of you, John. You don’t know anyone better than—”

“What if I told you I was waiting for the person I’m in love with to give me a sign?”

Sherlock swallowed thickly. John thought they were closer together than they had been. He was having difficulty focusing on Sherlock’s eyes. He still had one hand on Sherlock’s neck; the other was on Sherlock’s knee. “You love Mary,” Sherlock whispered. 

“I loved you first,” John murmured, and rubbed his nose against Sherlock’s. Sherlock gasped, a lovely, satisfying sound that hit John harder than the alcohol had, slid through his blood and heated him from the inside-out. “I love you more,” said John. 

“I’m not—” Sherlock struggled for breath. His hands flailed a little bit, landing on John, and John wondered momentarily where his drink had gone before deciding that he really didn’t care. “I’m not good for you.” Sherlock’s hands clutched, turned, twisted in John’s shirt, drawing him closer. 

Sherlock’s movement sent John’s face into Sherlock’s hair, which was fine with him. “You saved me.”

“You deserve better than me.” Sherlock turned his face into John’s neck. 

“You’re the best person I’ve ever met,” said John. 

“I’d be a terrible boyfriend.”

“Who said anything about boyfriend?”

Sherlock’s breath caught. His hands loosened in John’s shirt. He drew back a bit, far enough that John could see his face again. “Oh. I thought we were—”

“Sherlock, you’ve already planned our wedding,” said John, and then finally let himself kiss him. 

Sherlock didn’t really kiss back. Not quite. Not at first. He seemed too stunned to do much of anything. And then abruptly his hands tightened in John’s shirt again and he pulled John closer and then he kissed John back, and if it was a little sloppy and uncoordinated it was so _enthusiastic_ that John’s heart literally ached. 

And then, just as abruptly, Sherlock pulled back. “You can’t do this.”

“I can do this,” John assured him, and sucked on the side of Sherlock's neck. 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” said Sherlock, and twisted a hand into John’s hair hard enough to hurt. 

“Well, that’s new,” said John, vaguely amused, and tugged at Sherlock’s earlobe. “I don’t know whether to blame that on alcohol or lust. Maybe both? Did you mean it literally?” John moved his lips back to Sherlock’s, nipped fondly. 

Sherlock shook his head, breaking John’s ability to deepen the kiss. “You can’t. You’ll hate me in the morning.”

“Don’t skip all the way to morning already, you’re skipping all the good bits,” said John, using his hand on Sherlock’s neck to try to bring him forward, into another kiss. 

“John,” Sherlock said, firmly, and resisted, pulling John’s hand off his neck. 

John looked at him. His pupils were dilated, but his focus seemed steady, not drunken anymore. He looked stern and stubborn. 

“There’s no Mary,” John told him. 

Sherlock stared at him. “Yes, there is,” he said. “I’ve met her.”

“You’re right. There’s a Mary. I’m just not in love with her.”

Sherlock continued to stare. “What.”

“And she’s not in love with me.”

Now there was understanding creeping into Sherlock’s face. “ _What_.”

John smiled. And then he started laughing. He fell back in his chair and laughed and laughed and laughed until tears ran down his face. And then, trying to catch his breath, he looked at Sherlock, who was looking at him in bewilderment. 

And John grinned at him. “Oh,” he quoted, relishing it. “Your face.”

Sherlock stood, looming over him. “There’s no engagement. That was all for show.”

“Not just show,” John said. “It had a purpose, didn’t it? It made you realize, _finally_ , how much you love me.”

“As if _I_ was the obstacle there!” exclaimed Sherlock. 

“I totally had you,” said John, and Sherlock hit him with a pillow. 

John laughed with glee, dodging Sherlock’s blows, and Sherlock finally sank to his knees by John’s chair and just stared at him. John tossed the pillow off the chair and smiled at him, reaching out and tangling his hand into Sherlock’s hair because he could now. 

“There’s no wedding?” said Sherlock, after a second. 

“There is a wedding. There’s a lovely wedding, all tastefully planned by the grooms. Both of us. With a bit of outside assistance.”

“You set up…this entire thing.” Sherlock was speaking slowly, still processing. 

“What would you have said if you’d come back and I’d asked you to marry me?”

“I’d’ve said you were mad.”

“What would you say to it now?”

“I’d say…” Sherlock paused and drew his eyebrows together. “I’d say it doesn’t sound like you.”

“What, wanting to marry you?”

“No, that I’m willing to believe. You’ve been sending me mixed signals and I was trying to ignore them for Mary’s sake, so, no, I’m willing to believe that. I mean that this entire _scheme_ doesn’t sound like you. You’re terrible at _schemes_.”

“But Mary loves them,” said John. 

“ _Oh_ ,” said Sherlock. “Clever liar, I _knew_ it, I should have known there was something up with her. You were never really going to marry her?”

“We’ve always just been friends. I thought we’d make one of those pacts, those ‘if we’re both single in so many years’ pacts. Then you came back and she said she was tired of me pining, and I said I had to pine because you were never going to notice me, and she said she could get you to pine, too, if I just went along with the plan, and I wasn’t really going to, not at first, but then you pulled that trick in the subway carriage and I thought…” John considered his words, because he meant this, it wasn’t a joke. “I thought: Maybe this is just what we need, you and I. Maybe we just need to be tricked into realizing the things that have been true all along. And I didn’t believe her, I wasn’t really sure, but then you…You were…This whole time…Tonight you took me to pubs on streets where we’d found corpses together. I’d never dreamed you’d ever do anything so romantic.”

“I did it for you,” said Sherlock. “ _You’re_ the romantic.” 

“I love you,” said John. “I’m _in_ love with you. Marry me.”

“You really mean this.” 

“I really mean this. Swear to God.” John brushed Sherlock’s fringe off his forehead, trailed his thumb over Sherlock’s cheek. 

Sherlock took a shaky breath. “It was a risky plan, wasn’t it?”

“No. Not really. We started slowly. But then you were showing your hand so much that we felt confident really moving forward with the plans. You’re not as enigmatic as you think, you know. So what do you say, Sherlock Holmes? Do you want to marry me?”

“Yes, I want to marry you,” said Sherlock, and launched himself up and half-onto the chair, peppering John with frantic kisses. “Of course I want to marry you.” Suddenly Sherlock paused and ripped the piece of paper off John’s forehead, following it with his own. John looked over, curious, as Sherlock read his name and said, “ _Me_? I was _myself_? Nice- _ish_? I’m not nice at all!”

“Madonna,” said John. 

“It’s a woman, right?” said Sherlock. 

“Yes, you got that right. Next time we play this game, make sure you know who the person you choose is.” John crumpled up their pieces of paper and tossed them to the side. 

“Can I say something?”

“Of course you can.”

“I wrote you a really nice speech, you know! I _labored_ over that speech!”

“I’ll write one for you and we’ll each say them at the wedding, how’s that?”

Sherlock considered. “Acceptable,” he decided. And then, after a moment, with the air of crossing a bridge and setting fire to it, “I love you.”

John smiled at him and said, “I may find this stuff difficult. But I love you, too.”


End file.
